Contentment: The Secret of Happiness

It was a beautiful, clear Colorado day. My friends and I loaded the back of a truck with guns and ammunition and drove out to a section of state forest often used as a shooting range by locals. We also brought with us old junk to blow to smithereens, including a TV set and some zombie targets. It was to be good, manly fun.
When we got to the range, my friend produced from his pocket a small digital computer called an iPaq and announced that it too would be used for target practice. When I saw it, I could not help but burst out laughing. These iPaqs used to be all the rage in the tech world, the prized possession of every man with a briefcase and a BMW. After all, they had color screens, could check email, and boasted a whopping 128MB of onboard storage. For these stunning features, one would pay a mere $600.
And now we were using it for target practice.
The Lesson
The once coveted iPaq was eventually disintegrated by a shotgun, but it taught me an important lesson that day: Don’t get too attached to the toys this world offers. For truly, all temporal things are more or less like that once shiny and dazzling iPaq. They are thrilling for a moment, but then quickly forgotten, to be used one day for target practice, or worse yet, to be left rotting in a landfill.
A tech enthusiast myself, this lesson has been difficult for me to learn, and in many ways I am still learning it. But technology is by no means the only temptation. Perhaps iPhones don’t thrill you, but you covet the latest sports car or boat—it could be a thousand different things. Whatever your personal temptation, we must all purpose in our hearts to reject